By Eric Morath and Lauren Weber
Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google are planning to
recruit thousands of employees in New York City, pitting the two
behemoths against one another and other businesses for
already-scarce talent in the area.
Amazon will bring more than 25,000 jobs to New York and another
25,000 to Northern Virginia, it announced Tuesday. Google,
meanwhile, plans to double its workforce in New York City to more
than 14,000 workers over the next ten years, its chief financial
officer said Monday at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech D.Live
conference.
The competition for talent will be stiff, recruiters say. But
the two companies each have some distinct requirements that set
them apart from other employers -- and from each other, according
to an analysis that labor-analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies
conducted for the Journal. For example, the companies favor
different coding languages and technical approaches for software
projects.
Amazon declined to comment on its specific hiring plans in New
York. A Google spokesperson didn't respond to requests for
comment.
Burning Glass analyzed jobs each company posted over the past 12
months. Of the more than 42,000 jobs Amazon listed, the highest
concentration were in three occupations -- software-development
engineers, software-development managers and so-called solutions
architects. Among the 14,000 jobs Google posted over the same
period, the three most in-demand roles were for software
development engineers, program managers and marketing managers.
Amazon wants more software engineers who are well-versed in the
coding languages Microsoft C# and Java. It also is seeking pros who
have experience using a technical approach called object-oriented
analysis and design and -- not surprisingly -- Amazon Web Services,
the company's unit that hosts other firms' data in the cloud.
Google, on the other hand, wants more people with Linux and
JavaScript knowledge. Both companies covet employees skilled in the
programming language Python, which is often used for big-data
projects. But 62% of Google's job postings for software engineers
ask for that skill, compared with 36% for Amazon. Nationally, only
19% of employers' job ads ask for Python.
More than a fifth of Amazon and Google software engineer job
postings sought machine-learning skills, compared with less than 3%
nationally. And 63% of both firms' ads sought engineers who know
the C++ language, often used for building applications and
operating systems, compared with 13% nationwide.
Amazon originally said it would locate a second headquarters in
a single location for 50,000 workers. But the company now plans to
split its second hub between New York City and a Northern Virginia
suburb of Washington, D.C., to ensure it has the best access to
technology talent across multiple regions.
"These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent
that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to
come," Amazon's founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a
statement.
Amazon's New York office will be in the Queens neighborhood of
Long Island City. In Virginia, it chose the Crystal City area of
Arlington, just outside Washington, D.C. Burning Glass found that
these metro areas have an above-average share of workers who are
software developers. By that measure, the nation's capital has an
edge, most likely because of the many military and government
contractors in the region.
But New York is likely to have a higher number of prospective
hires, Burning Glass found, using total jobs postings for software
engineers in the city as a proxy. Only the Bay Area beats New York
in terms of numbers of software engineers, the analysis found.
Expanding in New York suggests Amazon and Google are more
concerned about having access to thousands of potential employees
rather than fostering an urban tech scene that might be more
important to newer, smaller companies, said Tom Stringer, head of
the site selection and business incentives practice at consulting
firm BDO USA.
Smaller cities such as Austin, Texas, have been successful in
creating a tech culture that entrepreneurs gravitate toward, he
said. In those places, younger companies can make business
connections at cafés, the gym or a local university. "It's really
the only way these smaller companies can compete for talent," he
said.
"With bigger companies, it's about growing to scale," he said.
"The attraction to New York is the volume of people with diverse
skill sets."
Even so, the companies may need to lure workers to New York City
if they find their reputations and high salaries aren't enough to
attract those already living there. Convincing people to move for a
job is challenging, and getting experienced workers, particularly
midcareer professionals with families, to give New York City a try
might be tough.
"People don't like to relocate. They live in a place for a
reason," said Bhushan Sethi, workforce strategy leader at
PricewaterhouseCoopers. "New York City is a wonderful place, but
the infrastructure, housing, and cost isn't for everyone."
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 13, 2018 14:28 ET (19:28 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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